Dangers from granite countertops overblown

This summer, reports started popping about possible health risks associated with the product, a favorite of high-end bath and kitchen remodelers.

The reports suggested that some granite countertops, especially those mined from far-flung reaches of the planet, might emit dangerous levels of radiation and radon, a colorless, odorless gas that can cause lung cancer.

The granite-countertop industry pooh-poohed the reports and quickly countered with an avalanche of studies that they said confirmed the product's safety.

End of discussion? Not quite.

In this era of endless product recalls, safety warnings and liability lawsuits, some safety-conscious consumers still aren't sure what to think.

Take Sarah Minto.

Minto, 33, has granite countertops in her Powell home, and, with two young daughters -- Delaney, 7, and Grace, 5 -- she doesn't want to take any chances.

Minto said she started worrying when all the speculation about a possible cancer link surfaced this summer.

A similar concern lingers in many central Ohio households, fueled by a recent spike in granite's popularity.

According to the Marble Institute of America, demand has grown tenfold in the past decade.

"We've been inundated with calls on granite countertops," said Dan West, president of Radon Systems, a 23-year-old detection and mitigation company based in Westerville.

"I have people calling me all the time saying that they are thinking about having their granite removed."

Hoping to get some answers, WBNS-TV (Channel 10) enlisted Radon Systems to test the countertops in the Mintos' home.

"If I found out it was a concern," Minto said, "there would be no question that I would take them out."

Rob Coleman, a chemistry professor at Ohio State University, predicted that Minto's fears would turn out to be unwarranted.

Coleman, a nationally recognized cancer researcher, told WBNS that he has found no scientific evidence that granite countertops can sicken a home's occupants.

Health experts generally agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at low levels. But, they say, such emissions are insignificant, especially in comparison with the radiation that's constantly raining down from space or seeping up from the Earth's crust.

"In typical modern homes with open floor plans, with granite countertops, the radium just diffuses away and goes out the windows," Coleman said.

The results of the testing in the Mintos' home proved the professor right.

Radon Systems found the interior radon level to be only 0.6 picocuries per liter of air, well below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "action level" of 4 picocuries per liter of air.

Obviously relieved, Minto turned her attention to a different set of figures: the numbers she and her children were forming out of pretzels at the granite-top island in their kitchen.